One of the bummers about seeing awesome movies at film festivals is that I write about how great they are knowing it might be six months, a year, never, until you, the idiot layman, gets to see them. Well now, A Band Called Death, a great documentary about a forgotten then re-remembered black punk band from Detroit that I reviewed back in June, is hitting Netflix Instant, along with four other Drafthouse titles (I also interviewed the band).

Now you can watch it from the comfort of your own futon, free of charge (provided you have a Netflix subscription). Here’s a fun game to play: try to watch A Band Called Death without tearing up. If you make it all the way through, cut open your arm with a pocket knife to make sure you’re not a robot. If it turns out you are a robot, call me, I have an extensive kill list.

Some of the other Drafthouse films hitting Netflix Instant:

GRACELAND

A riveting, stomach-knotting thriller about the chauffeur to a corrupt Filipino politician whose own daughter is taken in a kidnapping attempt meant for the politician’s daughter. Watch it here.

Here’s the trailer, in case you weren’t sold by the picture of the girl tied up.

PIETA

A merciless debt collector lives his life in cold proficiency until a woman claiming to be his mother arrives and he begins to regret his dark past in this powerful, unrelenting drama. Watch it here.

“Cold proficiency?” Pff, I live my life in shit-hot mediocrity, the only way to be. Honest question: Have you ever seen a Korean or Japanese film that didn’t involve blood or gore in some way? I honestly can’t remember any. Not that I’m complaining.

WAKE IN FRIGHT

dir. Ted Kotcheff

1971

Drafthouse Films revived this brutal, operatic masterpiece from the ’70s about life and violence in the Outback. Watch it here.

Oh, I’m watching the hell out of this. Australia in the 70s was a strange and bizarre place. It really doesn’t get enough credit for being a terrifying backwater.

WRONG

dir. Quentin Dupieux

2012

The latest winningly absurd riot from Dupieux, in which a schmuck wakes to discover he’s lost the one good thing in his life: his dog, Paul. Watch it here.

If I’m being completely honest, I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. Which is a bummer, because I got a kick out of William Fichtner as a dog detective, and an absurdist romp about a search for a lost dog seems like it was pulled straight out of my wheelhouse (my ex-girlfriend took our dog to another town six months ago, have I mentioned that before? I actually broke down in tears at the Apple Store the other day.). But for me it crossed that line between absurdist romp and edged well into the tedium of Samuel Beckett-esque over examination of everything. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and all of that, I’m not on enough mushrooms to watch you ponder the meaning of cigars. But don’t take my word for it, it’s pretty well established that I’m kind of an asshole.

I didn’t tear up for Death, but it is a genuinely moving story with a lot of heart.

I think my muted reaction is mostly due to the real uppercut caused by finding out the big fakeout in Searching for Sugarman, which I’d seen not too long before watching Death. I mean, there is “massaging” the truth and there is flat-out lying to your audience. It’s bad enough when a film does that to real events. But for a documentary to do this, (ok, for any non-Michael Moore documentary) that’s not even political in nature, is a fucking disgrace. It certainly left a sour taste in my mouth that made me watch the Death doc with a bit of apprehension, which shouldn’t have been the case. This may account for me not crying at the end of Death, which I should have as I cry at almost anything at the drop of a hat.

Why do white folks get so jazzed about hearing black folks playing white music? It’s like an instant hipster orgasm. It’s like they’re saying “see.. forget that slavery thing, and reconstruction, and basically everything up until 1980… we white people have some pretty cool music if you give it a chance don’t we??”

There was some breathless article recently about a black punk band of 13 year olds recently.. the writer could barely contain himself, frothing espresso foam all over his macbook.

Wake in Fright is INSANE. But it’s not for the squeamish, *minor spoiler* there’s a brutal kangaroo hunt scene with real kangaroos that they fight and kill. It’s a disturbing, delirious ride and one of my favorite lesser-known films from the ’70s.